Unlike the private sector (see, for example, Citigroup Inc.), where a CEO might leave unexpectedly or precipitously, the federal government knows when its current CEO will leave and the new CEO and management team will arrive. A new team will arrive in Washington on Jan. 20, 2013.

I say that not predicting a Mitt Romney-Paul Ryan White House, but rather expressing the expectation that regardless of the outcome changes are coming.

Obviously, a Republican victory would bring wholesale turnover and a formal transition led by former Utah Gov. Michael Leavitt. Leavitt has been in D.C. for several weeks heading “The Readiness Project,” as the campaign calls its transition preparations.

But a second term for the Barack Obama-Joe Biden team also would bring change in key White House staff, at the Office of Management and Budget, where an “acting” fills the director role, and across the government.

Several Cabinet secretaries (such as Hillary Rodham Clinton at State and Timothy Geithner at Treasury) have already indicated they plan to leave. Others, who have not done so, will surely depart as well, setting off the toppling of dominoes as deputies, undersecretaries and assistant secretaries move up or move on.

Whoever wins the Nov. 6 election will face a large – and growing – long-term fiscal imbalance driven by an aging population, which will dramatically increase health care and retirement costs. There are other challenges as well: the so called “fiscal cliff,” the continuing war on terror, increasing competition from emerging world powers like India and China, rising energy costs, environmental concerns, a still-struggling economic recovery. The list goes on.

There is certainly no shortage of problems for the winner to solve. The question is whether he will adapt new management approaches to meet those challenges, which require a “changed” government. And by that I don’t mean a cliched bumper-sticker government – one that “does more with less” or is “leaner and more efficient.” I mean a 21st century government transformed to operate on demand.

Four years ago, I organized and published “A Management Agenda for the Next President,” a series of articles by current and former government executives, management experts and informed observers.

One of them was Donald Kettl, dean at the University of Maryland. Back then he said the following: “No self-respecting president can enter office without a management plan…. Management matters, with each new administration, the fresh question is how.”

In that same essay, Kettl argued that while “the focus on management has tightened. . . . the stock of ideas for improving it has not.”

I came to Washington in 1975, on what was going to be a one-year fellowship. Back then, agencies were still reeling from Lyndon Johnson’s "planning, programming and budgeting system" and Richard Nixon’s management by objectives.

Then Jimmy Carter had zero-base budgeting. Ronald Reagan kicked off Reform 88 and committed to privatizing the government. George H.W. Bush continued those efforts, burnished by “a thousand points of light.” The Clinton administration had “reinventing government.”

George W. Bush gave a speech in July 2000 focused on “citizen-centered, results-oriented and, wherever possible, market based” government. In fall 2008, then-Sen. Obama rolled out his plan to make government more transparent and to appoint a chief performance officer and a chief technology officer.

Never before have we so badly needed new and big ideas for government management. Never before have we so badly needed strong managers and leaders in government. The federal government can take five steps (doesn’t everyone need a five-step plan these days?) to get on the road to transformation.

1. Create a different culture by taking advantage of the need for new hires.

2. Give all employees new collaborative technologies.

3. Develop new relationships between the government and its contract workforce.

4. Enhance collaboration between the federal government and state and local governments, as well as with the nonprofit and private sectors.

5. Become more citizen-centric.

I will expand on those topics on this blog in the coming weeks.

Alan Balutis is a distinguished fellow and director of Cisco Systems Inc.’s Internet Business Solutions Group and the former chief information officer of the Commerce Department, with more than 30 years' experience in public service and industry.